Channing Thorpe, Plant City teen, shots and kills father to protect mom from beating

A teenager defending his mother as his father beat and choked her Saturday night shot and killed him, authorities said.

Channing Thorpe, age 17, fired several shots from a handgun, deputies said, to protect his mother.

Photo/CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS / @CSI?cafe via wikimedia commons

The boy’s father, Christopher Thorpe, age 36, got into a verbal argument with Jill Thorpe, age 35, which escalated from words to violence as Christopher began beating his wife and then choking her.

Deputies say that this is when their son rushed in to help her, fired several shots from the handgun.

Christopher Thorpe was found dead in the bedroom. One of the bullets also struck Jill Thorpe in the thigh. She was taken to Lakeland Regional Hospital and later released.

Deputies made no arrests in the case and left Channing Thorpe in his mother’s custody.

“I had never, ever seen three people that were so close,” Evelyn Thorpe, the boy’s grandfather told the press. “All three of them did everything together. Everything. I just can’t understand it.”

Three others at the bonfire apparently did not witness the shooting. The three were Channing Thorpe’s maternal grandmother, who lives there, along with his girlfriend and another friend, the Sheriff’s Office said.

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